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KCC Exhibition: Hyen Jungyoon — Walking on Tiptoes

The KCC’s final exhibition of the summer:

Jungyoon Hyen: Walking on Tiptoes

2018 The Korean Cultural Centre UK and SPACE Studio Award Winner
6 August – 1 September 2018 @KCCUK
OPENING RECEPTION: Monday 6 August, 6 – 8 PM
RSVP: [email protected] | +44 (0)20 7004 2600

Jungyoon Hyen: Mama never told me how my dreams will be shattered
Jungyoon Hyen: Mama never told me how my dreams will be shattered

The Korean Cultural Centre UK (KCCUK) is pleased to present the first solo exhibition of Jungyoon Hyen, the winner of the inaugural KCCUK and SPACE Studio Award.

The jurors, Jonathan Watkins (Director, Ikon Gallery) and Karen Davies (Head of Artist Development, SPACE) selected Jungyoon Hyen as the winner of the Studio Award in 2017. Beginning in September 2017, this annual award is presented by the KCCUK and SPACE Studio, with the prize comprising of a 12-month residency at SPACE Studio and the chance to present their work at the KCCUK shortly after. The Award marks the beginning a special relationship between the KCCUK and SPACE as main partners of the Emerging Artists Support Programme for Korean artists in the UK.

TiptoesWith interests in the invisible power relations that exist between the city, the body, and the community, Hyen’s practice explores how the unseen authorities within the capitalist city impacts and dismantles our everyday life. Hyen’s works often take inspiration from the scenes she encounters whilst wandering around the city – in particular, any representational forms of control and resistance, whether obscured or apparent, including any abandoned objects that have long-since strayed from their original function such as abandoned bicycle chains to disfigured lamp posts.

Based on her research over the past three years, including her time at SPACE studio, Walking on Tiptoes brings together non-functional pieces that Hyen has created through deconstructing, re-contextualising and re-appropriating familiar forms and symbolism of objects from her surroundings and everyday life in the city. Presenting them as a potent form of resistance to the invisible power structure embedded within the city space, Hyen invites the viewers to participate in a quiet protest to envision a meaningful future.

Her visually cartoonish works, like cut off scenes from fictive narratives, stimulate the viewers to expand their imagination to visualise motional stories from its stillness, and there are paradoxical situations where anxiety and hope intersects – evoking an emotional sense of humour and sadness or cute and pathetic at the same time. The non-functional, mutedly spoken, yet colourful sculptural pieces lighten the space with a sense of playfulness and mischievousness, all the while questioning the ontological relationship between the individual, the city and the objects within, and how we can re-situate ourselves within a constantly shifting fluid state.

Jungyoon Hyen: Walking on Tiptoes is presented in partnership with SPACE.

Jungyoon Hyen (b. 1990, South Korea) graduated from Ewha Women’s University, Seoul, with a BA in Painting and attained an MA in Sculpture from the Royal College of Art, London in 2017. Prior to her winning the KCCUK/SPACE Studio Award 2017, she has held exhibitions at various galleries and public exhibition spaces including events at Camden Arts Centre (2017), London, The Royal Edinburgh Sculpture Court (2016), as well as participating in a residency at La Ira de Dios, Buenos Aires.

Established by artists in 1968, SPACE runs 19 artist studio buildings across 7 London boroughs and Colchester, providing affordable creative workspace plus support programmes, such as exhibitions, artists residencies, bursaries and training opportunities, to enable artists to be sustainable.

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